Friday, March 10, 2006

Anne Coulter: Evil or Insane?I just got done watching Anne Coulter on Fox News. This, as you might expect, is not something I do very often, so I haven't seen her in a long time. My verdict: she really does seem to be kind of insane. (Note: not a an actual medical diagnosis. I'm not being Fristian here.) I don't have a transcript in front of me, but the following are very, very close to exact quotes:9/11 showed us that containment (of Saddam) was not working(Um, Earth to Anne: Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.)Iran could "put a missile in Hugo Chaves's country" and threaten us from there(Uh...huh?)Thank God there's a Republican in office during this crisis with IranAt least we'll be able to fly over friendly airspace (Iraq) when we attack Iran.(John Gibson asks: Isn't there any non-military option in Iran? Coulter laughs a little maniacally and then says:) if there is I'd like to hear it.The recent cartoon controversy showed us that we can't allow a lunatic to remain in power(um...huh?)It's a little hard to tell whether shes:(a) Insane(b) Radically epistemically incontinent(c) Brimming over with hate(d) Playing a part in order to pump up her stock with the radical right (and, hence, pump up her income)(e) All of the aboveSo it's hard to tell whether she's a very bad person or merely a nut. But it's fairly clear that she's one or the other or some mish-mash of the two.

Footnote: Fox is just now showing a Republican convention-type-thing in Texas. It's interesting to note that they are still selling and wearing "Bush won: get over it" tee-shirts, seemingly indicating that they realize that Bush didn't clearly win (in 2000), else they wouldn't feel the need to keep frantically insisting that he did. Interestingly, though, they just talked to one Republican there who claims that the Bush administration is the worst one in his entire life. So reality may be seeping in on even some of these folks.

The right has been by far the more rhetorically excessive at least for the last 12 years or so. They started all this with their crazy Clinton-bashing, maintained it through their absurd accusations that Gore (Gore!) was trying to steal the election (presumably by, you know, counting the votes)...and it's all just gotten worse since 9/11 and the Iraq debacle. During this time we've been told that we are unpatriotic and "objectively pro-terrorist" for doing things like saying that we should, you know, attack the people who attacked us and, you know, not attack the people who didn't.

If you can't face the failings of your own end of the spectrum without trying to blame the other guy, then you have no chance of fixing what's gone wrong one your end.

Um, well, I think you might agree with me that she's crazy, though I came away unsure.

That you would compare her to Michael Moore--who's a partisan hack, but not crazy--seems questionable to me, though the comparison is telling. Moore, like Coulter, is a single-minded partisan drone (though he's not really partisan...he's some kind of lefty, but I'm not sure how much of a Democrat), but he doesn't advocate killing people, which Coulter does with some regularity. The comparison is apt, though, because they both represent a rather fringy part of their respective ends of the spectrum. But your extremists are far, far more extreme than our extremists.

Coulter's closer to, say, Ward Churchill than Michael Moore. And Churchill is a joke among liberals. Coulter, on the other hand, is a hero among very, very many conservatives.

Unlike Coulter's books, Farenheit 9/11 had some truth in it. It also had some unfair claims and some hyperbole...but at least some of it was true and important. Coulter's stuff is almost uniformly useless.

Well, I meant to write that I don't find her attractive either, but I guess that got obscured by my ambitions toward clever if not entertaining prose. It is a failing.

No, I don't think she's crazy, nor do I think anyone named here is. I think they all know precisely what they're doing. I kinda liked Ward Churchill's riff, that a people is ultimately responsible for the sins of their regime. It was too scary a thought to be discussed openly.

I think people should say stuff. The question is whether it's their ideas that are subversive or just their rhetoric. My other question is who should say what.

Because, no, I don't think you notice anymore, either. That one has to troll so far down the conservative food chain to arrive at Coulter, and that her remarks are in the least way remarkable, indicates that she's more an exception than the rule.

See, I just don't know what the rules are anymore. I don't have to go to the world of opinion-tainment to see (what I consider) rhetorical excess on the left side of the aisle: I just have to pick up the morning paper to see Sen. Clinton talk about the US as a nascent "police state."

I see Sen. Dick Durbin play the Nazi card, be defended for it by the left, and then trashed for withdrawing his remarks by the Kososphere.

So, just let me know. I dunno if Kos is to be taken seriously or not. I do take as a fact that senators want to be taken seriously. I know that Coulter is first and last a professional provacateur: it's her job and her profession, and there's no doubt she does it well because people get provoked, as evidenced here, and she makes money at it.

Is Coulter to be taken seriously? Certainly not her supposed calls to violence, which common sense forbids taking seriously. I mean, c'mon.

Her "serious" work? My wife brought "Treason" home from Costco, and before I read it, I scoured the internet for criticisms and objections---she's not earned enough credibility with me to accept everything (or anything, really) she writes as fact. But on the whole, the fiskings revealed that she continuously writes New York Times for "Maureen Dowd" or "Paul Krugman." Regrettable in my view, but not entirely inaccurate. Still, she injures her credibility with such glosses, not that she is given any by anyone but her sympathizers.

Nothing she says is true?

Some of what Michael Moore says is true? Which part? Which part is false? Does it matter? I just don't know the rules.

1. Right--I'm sure that SOME of what Coulter says is true, too. I stand corrected... Compare the ratio of truths to falsehoods in her books, however, to that in _Lies and the Lying Liars_ or Farenheit 9/11. They won't be close.

2. You can't be serious about the Clinton comparison. Just because ONE more central Dem said something questionable doesn't mean that the Democratic crazies are crazier than the Republican ones. Pick any level you want, from the presidency on down to mid-level blogs, and you'll find more conservative crazies at almost every level. Remember Jesse Helms warning CLinton not to come to NC lest he be shot by the army? He was, um, a SENATOR. Remember the ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION lying to us about the Saddam-9/11 link. Remember the chorus of voices on the right calling Clinton a murderer/rapist/drug runner? Remember the Vince Foster "murder"? There's simply no comparison.

The right's in real trouble these days, Tom. They're dragging down the country which is dragging down the world. It's not inconsequential that there are MANY prominent voices on your side that are nuts. I don't defend Ward Churchil (though, um, you seem to be willing to); I'm not sure why folks on your side are willing to defend Coulter (and Hannity, and O'Reilly, and Limbaugh, and Horowitz, and the Fox "News" channel, and Grover Norquist and...well...do you guys even have *anybody* sane anymore?

I have compared the ratio of truth between Coulter and Moore, and have given my opinion. Still, they are sideshows.

Yes, I am willing to defend Ward Churchill, and it follows all the other ladies and gentlemen you name as well. People should say stuff, no matter how unpalatable, how unthinkable, how unspeakable. Especially if they have something to say besides partisan claptrap.

I draw the line at elected officials (or unelected ones like Howard Dean, who are still officials). And life and death. These are my lines.

Of them I demand prudence, but not from any of the rest of us. That's too much to expect even in a democracy. In my way, I'm a child of the Enlightenment and the First Amendment. Lenny Bruce is my existential hero.

But as even the wisest of us all Socrates learned, there is a price to pay for telling the truth. Truth is a lonely business because it singes all, not in the least the Cassandra who tells it. If wisdom were just simply truth, we wouldn't need a separate word for it.